Aerohive Networks, Leaders in Controller-Less Wi-Fi

17 September 2012

Aerohive Networks, Leaders in Controller-Less Wi-Fi And Cloud-Enabled Networking, Announces $22.5 Million In Equity Financing

As Demand for Solutions to Simpli-Fi Enterprise Networks Heats Up, Aerohive Raises $22.5 Million to Accelerate Growth

Aerohive Networks, the pioneer in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-enabled enterprise networking, today announced $22.5 million in Mezzanine Equity financing, led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), a premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Northern Light and Four Rivers also participated in the round. This funding will be used to accelerate product development and increase market leadership, enabling Aerohive to capitalize on the exploding demand for its solutions.

News Facts

• The mobile device explosion is driving increasing demand for enterprise Wi-Fi. According to Infonetics, the enterprise Wi-Fi market grew 25 percent Q2 2012 over Q2 2011. However Aerohive is dramatically exceeding these numbers, delivering annual sales growth of over 150 percent for the last two years.

• Over the last year Aerohive has almost tripled its customer base, growing it to over 5000 customers and expects to surpass an annualized sales run rate of $100M before the end of 2012.

• The company has also been recognized as a leader by industry influencers, which includes being named a “Visionary” in Gartner’s recent Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure 2012 Magic Quadrant; awarded over 20 company and corporate awards such as CRN Emerging Vendors 2012, AlwaysOn Global 250, OnDemand Top 100 Private Companies and Infoworld 100; and was one of a select few networking companies to be invited to speak at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2012.

• Aerohive's decision to take additional funding at this time is driven by the company’s desire to continue this rapid growth and capitalize on its opportunity in the hot cloud-enabled enterprise Wi-Fi and networking market.

• Founded in 2006, Aerohive had raised $72 million in previous rounds of funding.

Comments

“The mobile enterprise is forcing businesses to re-evaluate their network infrastructures, making the market an attractive one for new solution providers like Aerohive,” said Steve Harrick, General Partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). “At IVP, we carefully select who we back based on superior technology and go-to-market strategy. We chose to invest in Aerohive because the company delivers a proven, next-generation enterprise networking solution and has demonstrated strong business momentum and rapid growth. We are excited to be working together.”

“Since inception, Aerohive has worked hard to be the leader in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-enabled networking, and it brings great satisfaction to see high profile investors like Institutional Venture Partners endorse our vision,” said David Flynn, CEO of Aerohive Networks. “We built solutions for where the market needed to go, and now the market is coming to us, leading to explosive sales growth. This is too exciting of an opportunity to not fully capitalize on, and this new investment lets us do just that.”

About Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)
With $4 billion of committed capital, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 300 companies, 91 of which have gone public. IVP is one of the top performing firms in the industry and has a 32-year IRR of 43.2 percent. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions and select public market investments. Since its inception, IVP investments include such notable companies as ArcSight (HPQ), Buddy Media, ComScore (SCOR), Concur Technologies (CNQR), Dropbox, HomeAway (AWAY), Juniper Networks (JNPR), Kayak, LegalZoom, LifeLock, LivingSocial, Marketo, MySQL (ORCL), Netflix (NFLX), Polycom (PLCM), Seagate (STX), Shazam, Synchronoss (SNCR), Tivo (TIVO), Twitter and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit http://www.ivp.com or follow IVP on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ivp.

About Aerohive Networks
People want to work anywhere; on any device, and IT needs to enable them -- without drowning in complexity or compromising on security, performance, reliability or cost. Aerohive's mission is to Simpli-Fi enterprise access networks with a cloud-enabled, self-organizing, service-aware, identity-based infrastructure that includes innovative Wi-Fi, VPN, branch routing and switching solutions.

Aerohive was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. They have been providing solutions for New Zealand customers since 2009, including Toyota NZ, Selwyn Village, Baggage Control Solutions, Barfoot & Thomson and a Manukau Institute of Technology. The company's investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Northern Light Venture Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). For more information, please visit www.aerohive.com, follow us on Twitter @Aerohive, subscribe to our blog or become a fan on our Facebook page.

ENDS

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